Cat has left the building

My almost nightly calls to and from Harold always found me out on my back porch, as if the conversations were too big for my tiny (and terribly cute!) apartment. Truth be told, I liked to smoke when I talked to him as it made me feel like I was somehow multitasking. I am not required by my lease to smoke outside, but I am almost physically incapable of smoking inside. It's one of many little pet quirks of mine. While sitting outside, the Cat Who Lived Upstairs ("Cat," for short) would always come down to visit me.

Cat and I had an understanding. Cat could show as much affection to me as he wanted, with the knowledge that I could not pet him back. Cat seemed happy with the arrangement we had worked out whereby I would stroke his back with the toe of my shoe, keeping my hands and face as far away from him as possible. Being allergic, my associations with cats have all had to take place at a distance of at least five feet, but Cat was able to come a little bit closer. I would talk to Harold, and sometime during the conversation, as I sat on the stairs, I would feel a gentle bump on my back and know that Cat was head butting me in greeting. Soon thereafter, Cat would stand on his back feet to peer through my screen door, sometimes standing that way for up to fifteen minutes, the sight of my kitchen table apparently a source of great fascination. Cat would come and go in the hours that I spent talking with Harold, but it was usually me who walked away and left Cat on the landing when my phone call was done.

Cat had a particular fondness for following me to the laundry room. He would walk complacently by my side, in a spot on "heel" that my dog could never even hope to match as I lumbered around the corner to the laundry room under the inevitable ten tons of laundry. Upon reaching the door, Cat would step up onto the sill and press himself against the door as if to say "There's no hope of getting in without me. Might as well just resign yourself to my presence." Cat liked to jump up on the folding table and amuse himself with dryer lint while I loaded the machines. A surprised tennant came in once and saw us there, ragged Cat and rumpled Woman, and said "Is this your cat?" "Him?" I said, looking at Cat who looked back at me, "No. Why?"

In the mornings, as I went to work, Cat and I would cross paths occasionally. Most of the time, Cat was headed out, but sometimes, Cat was on his way back home. When he was leaving, I would open the chain link door for him so that he didn't have to flatten himself to the dirty asphalt to squeeze under it, and say "Have a good day at work, dear. Don't stay at the office too late." I swear Cat smirked at that once. The one time I remember ever having any confirmation of his residency in our building was when he was coming in as I was leaving for work, my hands busy with travel mugs and tote bags. "Hard night, Cat? Here you go. Come on in." The door swung open and, as Cat wove his way between my ankles and in, I heard a voice from above: "Hey, thanks." I looked up and a blonde woman waved briefly and was gone. So Cat really did belong to someone. I kind of preferred thinking that Cat was like me...a free agent, attached to no one, a loner, a maverick. But no...even Cat had a home.

Cat's gone now. The blonde lady left at the beginning of the month and took him with. I watched her load her things into a pickup truck in the alley and secretly hoped that Cat was keeping himself away and wouldn't return until after she had gone. I envisioned the woman, in cutoff jeans shorts, standing in the alley yelling "CAT!" as someone impatiently honked the pickup truck's horn. In my fantasy, I saw her face in the back window of the receding truck as Cat emerged from behind a dumpster, watched the truck round the corner, and then walked up the stairs to wait for me to come out. But that's not what happened. Cat's just gone.